By: Commentary

September 22, 2005, Chicago Sun-Times

Two years. That's how long it will take to get a final report on the Metra train crash last Saturday that resulted in the deaths of two young women and injuries to more than 65 people, including a pregnant woman who, at last report, was in critical condition. Two years for the National Transportation Safety Board to figure out why a commuter train heading from Joliet to Chicago flew off the tracks at high speed and smashed into a steel bridge. Two long years.

Lauren Peduzzi, spokesperson for the NTSB, says the federal board is encumbered by a dearth of investigators, only 14 to look into every type of major accident across the United States -- highway, aviation, pipeline, etc. "We do the best we can," she laments. "We don't have a lot of people and we are limited by resources." This sounds horribly familiar, doesn't it? Didn't the Federal Emergency Management Agency say the same thing about coping with Hurricane Katrina? FEMA, to be sure, was guided by a boss who may not have been equipped for the job, but it was also hobbled by a similar lack of resources and constipated government bureaucracy.

Here's bureaucracy for you: Peduzzi says there are many steps investigators must take before a NTSB report is completed. There is the "fact gathering," which continues even after the safety board people have left the site of the accident. There is a look at maintenance records and training records, and then the investigation must go through what Peduzzi describes as "quality control processes." She explains: "You want to make sure it is done correctly, so you review it and you review it again."

And again and again and again. Because there are lawsuits often resting on NTSB findings.

But, still, two years? Chicago area residents still haven't learned the full details about a Metra crash on the same stretch of tracks in October 2003 -- the NTSB still hasn't issued its final report. That crash injured 45 people. And the fact that it took place in the same area as this latest accident should be ringing alarms.

Metra says that if there are grievous problems, the federal board tells Metra as soon as possible so they can be rectified. In the case of the 2003 accident, for example, a rookie engineer was blamed for the derailment and he was moved to another job. But we still don't have the whole story and we won't for several months, says Michael Rosenkar, acting director of the NTSB.

Aaron Gellman, a professor at Northwestern University's Transportation Center, says NTSB staff "are careful professionals" who can't afford to make a mistake and "a rush to judgment." He says competent safety agencies in England and Canada also take significant time to report. But two years "does seem like a long time to me," he allows.

Two accidents in the same place within two years. Seems like that would deserve some kind of priority.